


Never Felt that Lucky

by Flammenkobold



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Imprisonment, Marriage of Convenience, Married for Survival, Science Experiments, blue veins infected minor character, ex-lovers to friends, fighting an earth elemental is less painful than talking to your ex, non-romantic/non-sexual relationship, strangers to best friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 05:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold
Summary: Liliana is trying to help save the world but her day is not made easier by her ex-boyfriend turning up, her husband being injured and her ex-fiance escaping his cell.But life hasn't been easy for the past few months and she's learned how to deal with it - even if the LOLOMG and Oscar Wilde are testing the last of her nerves.





	Never Felt that Lucky

**Author's Note:**

> Or: Liliana has 99 problems and somehow being nominally married to Oscar Wilde for survival is the least of it.

The blood cells under the microscope definitely weren’t right. It was the first thought she always had, no matter how many times she had looked at them. Liliana’s field of expertise had never been biology, but in the months since the world had - for lack of a better word - ended, one had to make do with what one got. 

Over the past few months she’d gathered enough knowledge to know that those cells were definitely wrong, even if they had come from a different test subject than usual. If they reacted in the same way as the ones on the other slide, she might be on to something. Not that she had much hope at this point. It felt like she was missing something and running the same experiments over and over again. It was starting to get frustrating, especially with her not really having the option to go somewhere and collaborate with other researchers. 

She never thought that she would miss the university atmosphere, but now that her research was going nowhere she would’ve given her pinky finger to just go over to the pub and get into an argument with the philosophy students or walk through the carefully curated wing of the archaeologists for a different perspective. 

Neither of which was possible, so she just focused back on her current work and carefully placed a small crystal next to the microscope. She didn’t activate the trapped earth elemental inside it yet, not before she had confirmed that there hadn’t been a change in the blood cells already - like there never was.

It was just as well that her mobile stone started to go off then. 

“Hello? Hello? Are you there? Hello? Hello? If you are can you answer? Helloooooo?”

Liliana pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath before answering. 

“Hello, Professor.”

“Ah! There you are! Was worried you weren’t there.” 

Liliana swallowed down a _ where else would I be. _ She wasn’t a prisoner but there weren’t many places left to go, especially not on her own. Even if she discounted her work.

“What can I do for you?” She hoped he didn’t just call to check on her, again. The mobile stones were meant to be only for emergencies and for the weekly update visits, to hand over her research and receive new messages from her colleagues scattered around the world. That and the occasional order or request from Curie, which she mostly had started to ignore unless it was wildly important to her research. Or the rare letter from Saira, always sanitized on how bad the situation truly was in Cairo and their new home, but welcome nevertheless.

“I have some friends here that need help with a clue. They’re super cool, I promise.” 

“If you send me over instructions, I can see what I can do.”

“Ja, no, it’s kind of urgent? And, you know, preferably Curie shouldn’t know-”

Ah, so that kind of favour.

“- and I was wondering if could just pop over, very quickly, you help solve the problem and then whoosh we’re out again.”

“You know I have actual work to do?”

“Please? See I already promised and I told them how amazing you are-”

“Just a short visit, yes? And they have been cleared?” She interrupted him. Her research was important, but hadn’t seen much traction in the past few weeks anyway. Quite frankly she could do with a break and a different set of problems. Besides, this might be a good opportunity to get a few things that they needed here anyway.

“Of course. So is that a yes?”

“Under one condition.”

“Yes, sure, for you anything, eh?”

“I need several bottles of healing potion, new sewing material, and more paper and ink.”

Einstein gave a nervous laugh. “You know most of those are hard to come by. Potion is probably the easiest, I got some of those.”

“I need a dozen.”

“Wow, that’s a lot! Didn’t know your research was that dangerous!”

“Well, you can of course always wait for two days before I open the portal again.”

“Hah! You drive a hard bargain, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told before,” she said, a tiny smile appearing on her face as Einstein echoed the words of both Curie and Apophis. 

“Okay, give me one hour!”

That would at least give her just about enough time to wrap up her experiment. “Until later then, professor.”

“Einstein out!” 

Just as predicted she was nearly done when her mobile stone rang again. 

“Hello? Are you ready? Can we transport in? Hellooooo?”

“Give me a moment, Professor.” She wiped her hands on her apron, more habit than them being dirty, and started to dismantle the wards around the teleportation circle in the middle of her lab.

With a soft sizzle the second to last ward came down. “You can teleport in now.”

“Gotcha!” Einstein yelled the first part of the word into the stone and then the last bit into the air above her. She checked her alarm spells briefly, but none of them went off. She had tried to come up with one that detected the infection, and while not perfectly reliable so far, it had gotten good enough to get away with only minimal testing and not the seven day standard procedure.

“Ah! Where-” he looked down and spotted her, “there you are! Good to see you!”

She smiled back at him. “Good to see -” her words died as she noticed the people behind him.

“Uh, professor? You didn’t say it was _ her _,” Hamid said.

“He didn’t tell me you were the ones needing help either,” she shot back automatically.

“Oh so you know each other? Wonderful!” Einstein said, missing the chilly atmosphere in the room. He shuffled on his feet, and his goblin friend stepped forward.

“Yes, wonderful. So what are you doing here? Doing more experiments for the end of the world?”

“Trying to find a way to fix it, if you need to know,” she said sourly.

“Oh that’s new,” Hamid muttered under his breath. At least she could be sure that Hamid at least was still himself.

“You’re one to talk." Irritadedly she dispelled the last barrier. "Disappearing for two years and then coming back to cast judgment. But what else is new.”

“Hey now -”

“Hello there, new friend!” A big orc lady pushed herself to the forefront offering a hand to Liliana and quite conveniently interrupting her and Hamid’s little spat. “I’m Azu, and you would be?”

Liliana stared for a moment at the offered hand, a bit taken aback and quite frankly mildly blinded by the pink glow emanating from Azu’s amor. Then she remembered her upbringing and reached up to shake the offered hand, but it was Hamid who introduced her.

“Azu, meet Liliana. Liliana, this is Azu.”

Liliana gritted her teeth, but opted to ignore Hamid, as something clicked in her head.“You’re a paladin of Aphrodite? From the temple in Cairo?” she asked Azu. 

“Yes!” Azu answered her, quite proudly. “How did you know?”

“Yes how did you?” Hamid’s suspicious goblin friend asked - Grizzop? - she recalled vaguely.

Liliana opted to ignore him, too. Her hand found the amulet around her neck, an automatic habit she had formed in the past two years. “Aaron Fairhands mentioned you, during -” she didn’t know how to put the rest into clear words. 

The memories of her stay in Cairo were still partially muddied, after having been dragged and dragging herself across half of Europe and East-Asia before finding refuge and a short respite in the temple of Aphrodite, until everything else was sorted. There were crystal clear memories of talking to Saira, who was as kind and courteous as Liliana remembered her to be, despite the circumstances, and the terrifying hour spent in Apophis and Curie’s presence, negotiating for her own future. Her own recovery and most of the days in the temple itself were still hazy.

“- he saved my life,” she opted for in the end. “And I owe your church a lot for it.”

Azu let out a soft ‘oh’ and rubbed the back of her neck. “I didn’t know -”

“Yes, yes, okay, good,” Grizzop interrupted them. “You’re a reformed woman, and so on -”

“Grizzop!”

“What? As I was saying, that’s all well and good, but we’re on a time limit and the professor tells us you can help.”

“Hah,” Einstein threw in. “She is _ very _good.”

Liliana felt another impending headache. “Yes, well, if anyone would be so kind as to tell me what exactly you need help with?”

They all turned to the woman in the back, who so far had been quiet enough that Liliana had forgotten about her for a bit.

“Sasha? Could you -”

“Uh - yeah, hang on a second,” she muttered and slid the backpack from her shoulders. It took her a bit to rummage through it and find whatever it was they needed her help with. Finally Sasha unearthed something metallic and handed it to Liliana.

“It’s - uhm, like a - seed...thingy? Except not.”

Hamid jumped in again at that point. “We found it when investigating the simulacrum in London, it seems to be some sort of metallic seed, but even the specialist in Svalbard wasn’t quite sure what it was? It’s likely a deliberate alteration of a normal seed.”

Liliana turned it in her hands, the outside of the seed was smooth, too smooth in her opinion, but then against she wasn’t a botanist.

“It also seems to have some effect on those zombies?” Hamid added and the others chorused an agreement.

“You should have started with that,” Liliana said absentmindedly and wandered over to the station she’d been working on. “It’s the same material as the simulacrum?” She asked no one specifically, though Hamid was the one who responded.

“We think so.”

“So do you know what it is and what it does?” Grizzop pushed.

“Obviously not yet, it’ll take some time.”

“How much time?”

She turned back to them. “Give me five minutes of quiet and I can tell you how long it will take me,” she sniped back.

Just then Einstein spoke up. “Good, okay, I see you got this sorted! Give me a call when to pick you up, need to go!”

“Not so fast!” Liliana strode back to him. “My payment, if you’d be so kind, professor.”

Einstein shifted from one leg to the other, one of his obvious nervous ticks. “Oh, yes, here you go, the ink and the paper and here the sewing material!”

“Where are the potions.”

“Funny story, you see -”

“Albert!”

He flinched at her tone of voice. “There really isn’t -”

“There weren’t any left in the Norwegian outpost, and we used all of ours,” Hamid interrupted Einstein. Liliana was torn between being annoyed over it or relieved that she wouldn’t have to cut through the Professor’s babbling to get to the core of the problem.

“But I can get it! Just give me until you’re finished!” Einstein nearly yelled and stepped around her into the teleportation circle.

“You don’t -” but he was already gone, “- know when that’ll be.” Or if I can even really help here, she thought to herself. “Right then.” She turned back to her working station only to be stopped again by a gentle but large hand on her shoulder.

“If you need healing,” Azu said, “we could help out.”

Liliana turned her head and gave her a small smile. “Thank you, but no, it’s not - I’m well,” she settled for. It wasn’t for her, but the man hidden away in the house overground who had gotten hurt one time too many for her taste and was still recovering from his latest investigation. “It would just be good to have some backup left.”

“It doesn’t look like you get out much, or have many dangerous visitors in here,” Grizzop remarked and behind him Sasha looked around curiously as if trying to find hidden attackers.

“No, but my experiments aren’t exactly without danger.” Well, that, and what her friend was up to wasn’t exactly safe on the best of days. “Now if you don’t mind giving me a minute here to see what is up with that seed.”

She got back to the experiment and not even five minutes later she was interrupted again. “So, do you have anything already?” Grizzop asked her impatiently.

She sighed and adjusted the microscope, before turning back to him. “No, and it won’t go faster if you keep asking.”

“Any idea yet how long it might take you to get something?” Hamid ran interference again. He’d gotten even better at those than back in their university days. “Just a rough estimate maybe?” And he still used that lost puppy look that had always gotten to her, it seemed. 

“Maybe three or four hours.”

“Wot?”

“That long?”

“It’s science, not magic, so yes it’ll take that long.” She snapped at both Grizzop and Sasha.

“Maybe there is something we can do in the meantime?” Hamid suggested and Liliana took that out gladly. She pointed at the door on the other end of the cave. 

“There’s a kitchen, and I think one of the drawers has a deck of cards left.” 

“Cheers!” 

Liliana briefly closed her eyes as two of the team bolted over to the kitchen, leaving Hamid floundering and Azu looking at her quizzically.

“Though I could use some help here,” she added, even as she turned back to her experiment.

“Oh, I can do that!” Azu offered immediately.

Hamid quitely piped up, “It’s okay Azu, I’ll do it. You can join the others if you like.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Quite,” Hamid said. “Thank you, Azu.”

“Oh -” she said softly, finally getting the hint, which left Liliana alone with Hamid. 

“So …” they both started at the same time.

“After you,” Hamid offered.

“How have you been?” 

“Good, I - good.” For someone usually that eloquent it sounded even more horrendously unconvincing. “You?”

She toyed with the seed in her hand. “Alive,” she said and wanted to take the word back after Hamid exhaled in surprise. “Fine, honestly,” she added and it sounded as convincing as his ‘good’.

“Good?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

It was ridiculous, even considering what had gone down the last time they had seen each other. So Liliana straightened and waved in the direction of her station. “I had better get to work.”

“Yes, yes of course.” Hamid said, but made no attempt to join his friends. It hadn’t been a dismissal and she was glad that Hamid hadn’t taken it as one. Once she had the seed under a magnifying glass, she did feel a bit more secure, parts of her brain being more occupied with the mystery than trying to talk to her ex-boyfriend.

“How is Ishak?” she asked, adjusting the lense and slowly turning the seed over, searching for any irregularities on the smooth surface.

“Back safely at home with my family.”

“That is good to hear, I’m glad you got him out.”

“Are you?” Liliana didn’t look up from her work or deigned to reply to that, and luckily Hamid caught himself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t - Let me start over? Thank you.” He did actually sound sincere.

“You’re family is lovely, I always thought so.” She carefully turned the seed and then decided to switch over to the microscope. “When I was in Cairo, your sister let me stay for a bit at your old house.”

“She was always nice like that.”

Something tightened in her throat. It was a bit depressing how she missed Saira more now, than she had Hamid after their breakup. Still, there were things unsaid between them, things that needed saying, so she forced herself to continue.

“You were right.”

“What about?” Hamid inquired, thrown a bit by her change of topic.

“My inventions helped break this world, and I never considered what they could actually do, never cared.” Liliana straightened herself up. “It doesn’t matter, I’m going to help fix this.”

He looked at her in surprise and then opened his mouth to say something. “Don’t. I need to work.” She said sharply and could hear him exhale whatever he had wanted to say. For a few blessed minutes he actually managed to stay silent. 

Even under the microscope the seed looked too smooth, missing the familiar bumps and ridges that she was used to seeing from inspecting all kinds of plant matter under her first microscope as a child. Still, under close inspection it wasn’t completely flawless. 

Hamid shifted restlessly and finally broke the silence. He had lasted longer than she’d expected. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go on,” she said absentmindedly as something small caught her eye. 

“Why did you need the healing potions so quickly?” She lost focus briefly as she considered her words carefully. This way only chaos lay, she knew that already, but she knew that deflecting the answer would only make him push harder for it. 

“On his last mission my husband got hurt, and the wound isn’t healing properly.” She said as she turned the seed over again, zooming in once more. There was the little thing she was looking for!

“Your husband?!” Hamid’s voice was going up again and Liliana readjusted the focus too far, throwing him an annoyed look as she leaned away from the lens. “Please tell me you didn’t marry Gideon, after everything?”

She let out a hollow laugh. It had been so long since she had thought about her engagement to Gideon that she had briefly forgotten about it. 

“No, gods no. That - It’s not an option for various reasons.” She took a deep breath and wrote down some notes in her shorthand before she forgot. “Hasn’t been for a while. Not unless I had wanted to turn into a zombie.”

“Wait, what?”

“What do you think I’m working on?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “When I said my inventions helped do something terrible, I think - I think it helped with whatever happened to all these people in London and Paris and other places. And it got Gideon turned into ... into one of those things.”

“Liliana, I - I’m sorry,” Hamid said, and the worst bit was that he actually sounded like he was sorry, and not gloating over her having admitted her own failure. It was almost worse.

“Don’t be, as I said I’m working on it, with some help.”

“You and your husband?”

“No, not just us, there are others, a lot of scientists scattered around the world, trying to ... well, quite frankly, to do anything at all. We’re just trying to keep this little place save in the world and keeping the others informed.”

“He’s a good scientist then?”

She snorted. “Oh, he's no scientist at all, he’s … a writer. Talented in his own ways.” This she knew was dangerously close enough to reveal far more than she was ready to, far more than her husband might be comfortable with. A lot of his work hinged on his whereabouts and identity being kept hidden. He was Liliana Bekos’ husband and that was about as much as the rest of the world needed to know for the time being. 

“How does a writer get hurt that much?”

“Stupidity,” Liliana said sourly.

“I’m sure my friends could help out, two of them are paladins,” Hamid offered. “And I guess we have some time.” Liliana halted for a second and then returned to the seed.

“Thank you,” she replied as she pulled up the tray with her previous experiment on it. “But if Einstein returns I doubt that will be needed.”

“If you say so.” The quiet didn’t last long, or even at all, as Hamid continued. “Where did you see Gideon last, then?”

“Next door,” she answered even as she brought the tiny power source up to the seed under the microscope. Tiny ripples moved across the seed.

“What?”

“He’s next door, in one of the holding cells. We brought him in a few months ago.” She increased the power of the crystal with a simple spell. 

“_What? _”

“Don’t worry, he’s safely locked up.” She increased the power some more and didn’t even need to look to see the effect. The tiny ripples turned into waves and the seed started to gently vibrate in her hands.

“You’re keeping your possessed fiance locked up in your lab?”

“Infected ex-fiance,” she clarified. 

“That makes it _ so _much better.”

Liliana put down the crystal on the tray that held her previous experiment, and turned towards Hamid. 

“What do you want me to do? Not keep him here and let him run free to infect others?”

“That’s not -”

“This way he’s at least useful.”

“I’m glad I didn’t stay around long enough for you to lock me up too, then.”

“Hamid, what exactly is your problem?”

“My problem?” His voice was reaching towards a pitch where it might even break glass. “My problem is that I - and you - and argh!” He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath, gearing up for a rant. 

“I’m gone for a few months and you just get engaged to Gideon of all people? And started working with a necromancer and - I always knew you were ambitious, but that’s just insane.”

“And also nearly two years ago. Tell me, Hamid, how long did it take you to decide that you were one of the ‘good guys’ and that your past deeds didn’t matter?”

“I never -”

“- did anything wrong?”

“No! I just, I didn’t kill those people and I worked hard to get where I am.”

“Really? You told me that Gideon was the absolute worst and yet it never occured to you he might not follow your recipe?”

He looked genuinely shaken by that, and when he spoke his voice was a lot colder than she had ever heard it.

“Don’t you think I think about that daily?”

“Good,” she said.

He let out a deep breath. “Do you ever think about the people your experiments hurt?” If he meant it as a return hit for her words, it landed poorly.

“Daily,” She replied coolly. “It’s not as if I’m not faced with it every single day.”

“Good,” he said.

“Wonderful.” She meant to return to her experiments, angry still, when Hamid’s facade dropped and he blurted out what else was on his mind.

“I don’t even know what you saw in him!”

“He was there for me!”

“Excuse me?” Hamid’s voice turned higher again.

“He was there for me when you disappeared and couldn’t even be bothered to tell me the truth!”

“He just used you!”

“I am fully aware of that! But he was still there, when -”

“When what?”

“You know fully well what. When you weren’t!”

“You didn’t even let me explain things.”

“You didn’t even try to, Hamid.”

“Now that’s just not fair.”

“No, no it isn’t,” she slammed her hand down and the slide next to the seed, the one with Gideon’s blood on it, shattered. “You know what? You act as if it was only your life that got turned upside down. I always thought that we - well it doesn’t matter - and then you disappeared. _ Twice_.”

“Lili -”

Something else shattered. Something bigger. Her eyes flickered to her work station, and sure enough, some of Gideon’s blood had spilled on the seed. She automatically reached out for it. Whatever Hamid had wanted to say got lost. She stared at him with slowly dawning horror, realising what had just broken, and by the look in his eyes he had realised it too.

Somehow Gideon’s blood spilling on the seed next to one of her power sources, had translated into an energy boost, shattering the wards and the glass of his cell.

Something else clicked in her head then, but her thoughts were brought back to the immediate danger at hand by Hamid grabbing her arm and hauling her back.

“Guys?” he yelled over to his friends. “A little help?”

Just when he had finished shouting, Gideon sauntered out of the tunnel leading to his cell. He looked as calm as ever, a perpetual pleasant smile plastered to his face, eyes fixed on the seed in her hand as if he sensed it was there. “Liliana, please give me tha-”

She threw a fireball into his face.

Hamid followed by casting a fireball on his own.

Gideon staggered back, but what should’ve knocked him out - if not outright killed him - just temporarily inconvenienced him. At least it had knocked that cursed smile off his face. 

“That wasn’t nice,” he said and a spell zipped past Liliana hitting Hamid in the chest. In return an arrow buried itself deep into his arm.

“Is that the guy from the university? What’s his name?” Grizzop asked as he came running up to them.

Sasha followed right behind him and jumped over Liliana’s head, muttering back, “Can’t recall!” She then slashed at Gideon and caught his arm, making him hiss. “But why are we fighting him?”

“He’s not a nice person,” Hamid said the same time as Liliana answered, “Because he’s infected.”

“What?”

“Just don’t kill him!” she yelled at them. To her relief at least Azu nodded along, and when she hit him it was with the broad side of her axe. Sasha made a face but then also gave her a nod.

Gideon recovered quickly, dashing forward to grab the crystal from the table before either of them could react. He grinned at Liliana and his hand lit up in a spell that shattered the energy crystal, letting the earth elemental inside it escape. It was a small one, comparatively, and yet outside the crystal it was towering over everything else in the room.

Hamid let out a yelp and cast a spell on it immediately, which didn’t seem to have much of an effect. It gave Liliana time to cast her own spell, hitting both it and Gideon. 

“Don’t let him escape!” she yelled at the others, and perhaps that was a mistake. The hulking elemental turned to her and then disappeared into the ground. Not a second later the force with which it burst from the ground in front of her made her lose her footing and drop backwards. The arm of the elemental came down, its stony fist ready to smash her to bits. The amulet around her neck glowed. Pale pink light emitted from it, irritating the elemental enough that it missed her by a hair’s breadth, giving her time to scramble away. Gideon let out a laugh at her plight, that came to a gurgling stop as an arrow buried itself in his throat. 

Another shadow fell over her, and it took Liliana a moment to realize that it wasn’t the elemental. The realization came when a haunting, yet beautiful moan echoed through the caverns of her underground lair, as Azu’s axe buried itself in the elemental’s shoulder.

Through the legs of the elemental Liliana could see Sasha stab one dagger into Gideon’s arm and then knocking the handle of the other one into his head. Gideon went down like a sack of potatoes.

Above her a few more missiles slammed into the elemental, right next to Azu’s axe, leaving a ragged breach in its stony skin. Liliana aimed her own spell at the same spot and watched as the grey skin briefly glowed like fresh lava breaking through the Earth’s crust.

The elemental roared and the whole cave shook, making Azu nearly land on top of her, but she found her footing. She did so just in time before the elemental slammed into her, its stony fists gracing off her shining armour. 

“Oh no, you don’t,” Grizzop yelled at it and then two arrows found themselves in the back of the elemental’s head, distracting it long enough for Azu to return the attack, her glowing axe singing through the air once more. When it hit, it hit good. The already gaping wound in its skin cracked open further, spider web thin fissures ran outwards over the elemental’s body. Only seconds later the elemental crumbled to the floor in a pile of stone.

“Are you alright?” Azu asked her and reached down to offer her a hand, which Liliana gracefully took. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said absentmindedly and looked around the demolished lair, taking quick inventory. Liliana cursed softly. One of the elemental’s quakes had damaged the teleportation circle in the middle of the room.

“That doesn’t sound like its fine,” Grizzop pointed out. He was squinting down at Gideon’s prone body and nudged it with his foot.

“The transportation circle is damaged,” she said and tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, before turning back to Grizzop. “Is he alive?”

“So far.” 

She let out a relieved sigh. “Good.”

“So why is he here and what _ happened_?”

“He’s infected, he escaped and I might have a possible answer to that seed you brought in,” she said curtly. “Now can we please put him back in a cell and ensure he doesn’t die.”

The group all looked over to Hamid for guidance, who just sighed. “You heard her.”

Azu picked Gideon up, hauling him over her shoulder. “So who is he?” she asked curiously.

“My ex-fiance.”

“The bully I told you about,” Hamid said. 

“Oh,” Azu said softly. Liliana ignored their talking and walked ahead of them into the quarantine part of her lab, though prison would be more apt at this point. She had another room set up in her cottage that served better for quarantine of people she wasn’t sure were infected yet, but so far it had only been used by her husband, whenever he returned from travelling.

Speaking of which, she felt a tingle in her mind swiftly followed by his voice.

_ Is everything all right? Your amulet went off. _

She laid her words out quickly, ensuring she would get everything important into her reply message. “Gideon briefly escaped, he’s secured now. We have visitors, my other ex and his friends are here, and the teleportation circle is broken.”

It was up to him what to do with that information. 

“Who was that then?” Grizzop asked just as Azu questioned: “Your spouse?”

“Yes.”

“Huh?” was all Sasha commented.

“Moving fast then?” Grizzop quipped.

“Life is short,” she deadpanned.

“Hah, good point,” he agreed.

“How did you know?” Hamid inquired, looking up at Azu.

“Her amulet,” she explained. “It’s a protection from Aphrodite for married couples.” That it was, for both her and her husband. It let her know when he was in danger, every time. It had also let her know when he had nearly died. “Most were locked away by the Meritocrats,” Azu pointed out carefully, sounding mildly intrigued. “The amulets I mean,” she clarified herself hastily.

The amulet hadn’t come cheap, with an agreement that had almost cost her and her husband their lives. It still felt like her life was another deposit kept locked up in an unreachable place.

“So you’re married to a meritocratic agent?” Hamid hazarded a guess and she was mildly annoyed at how quickly they had figured it out. Even Einstein hadn’t come close to guessing over the past months. 

“Yes,” she said.

“But you work for the Harlequins?”

“There aren’t exactly sides anymore, Hamid,” she pointed out. “But it still would be kind if you didn’t go around divulging that information.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So’s this like double agent-y stuff? Wait, does that make you a double agent too?” Sasha asked, sounding amused by the thought.

Liliana pinched the bridge of her nose. “Technically?” she conceded. “Though both Curie and Apophis are aware.”

“They’re still working together then?”

“It’s the end of the world, so yes.”

“Einstein doesn’t know, it seems,” Grizzop pointed out.

“No, Curie does though. And if the professor hasn’t figured it out it’s probably for the better.”

“Fair enough.”

The cell in which Gideon had been kept was missing its entire front, the magically reinforced glass shattered on the floor. At least the opposite cell seemed undamaged. Both were blank uneven rooms carved into the stone, necessary plumbing installed and with a magic infused glass front. There was a small opening to get food and clean clothes through. The glass was supposed to be strong enough to withstand normal magical attacks and physical force. Seeing it shattered was unsettling. 

The seed they had brought with them had amplified whatever had taken hold in Gideon’s blood, and the crystal had acted as a jumpstart. It was interesting that it responded at a distance too, but that was something she would have to work on tomorrow.

Azu laid Gideon out in the cell Liliana had indicated and knelt next to him. Grizzop meanwhile looked around. “So do you put all your exes in cells?” he asked, and she couldn’t quite tell if this was meant as a joke.

“Only the ones I don’t like,” she replied in the same tone of voice.

“Really?” Hamid sounded nearly scandalized. 

Azu put a hand on Gideon’s arm, and Liliana watched as the faintest pink glow emitted from her hand and his wounds stopped bleeding. 

“Well, he’s stable now and should recover in a bit of time.”

“Thank you,” Liliana said and meant it. Even without the influence of the virus Gideon had been awful, she knew that much, it had just taken her a bit of time to figure it out. 

Liliana had made it out of Prague unscathed, after agreeing to work with the meritocratic research center in Warsaw. Unfortunately, after the fall of London and Paris, the Cult of Mars had been less inclined to let her get away again, and the meritocratic protection she had been promised had been nearly completely undermined. She had been lucky to escape, before the virus had taken hold there completely. 

Gideon hadn’t been so lucky. As Einstein’s assistant he had been kept in Prague, and still had been there when everything had come toppling down.

She wondered if letting the others kill him earlier wouldn’t have been kinder, or if it would just have taken part of the guilt she carried. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about him as a person or friend anymore, not after all the lies and deceit, but in the months after he had been imprisoned in Prague he had tried to make amends and explain himself to her, in the limited ways available to him. Maybe it didn’t count for much, but she had agreed to talk things through properly with him once they met again. Not that she ever got the chance.

These days he was a constant reminder of her own hubris and failings.

Grizzop interrupted her thoughts. “So since that’s sorted out, how long do you think it’ll take you to figure out what’s going on with the seed? Not to be pushy or anything, but we kinda need to get going.”

“Well, the good news is I figured out what it does.”

“What’s the bad news?” Sasha asked suspiciously and Liliana gave her a sharp smile.

“I can’t fix the transportation circle today.”

There was a round of groans around the room.

“Like absolutely no way?” Grizzop asked. “Can’t you do something to allow Einstein to just, you know, poof in?”

“No, I can’t just allow for him to ‘poof’ in. That would require dismantling every ward on this laboratory and my home.”

“Can we do _ something _in the meantime?” Hamid said. “You said you figured out the seed, so maybe we can get to work on that.”

“Unless you have a degree in advanced biology or a medical degree, I doubt it.” She rubbed her temple, her mind whirring with thoughts. “I’ll need someone else to run proper tests but from what I can tell, the seed is part of what causes the infection.”

Everyone backed a step away from her. She just gave them a look. “The one you brought is dormant on its own. You’ll likely need a power source, a reagent and something controlling the infection to activate this one.” She gestured vaguely with the seed in her hand. “Or you need to be infected by someone like Gideon.” 

Sasha peered quizzically down at herself. “Do you think we might be infected now?” 

“No.” They weren’t entirely certain how the infection was transmitted, but she hazarded a guess that it wasn’t going to be like this. 

“So what do we do in the meantime then?” Grizzop pushed once more.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going home,” she said and walked into the direction of the tunnel leading to her house. The group just stood there for a moment until Liliana gestured for them to come along. 

When they caught up, she looked over to the paladins and considered Hamid’s earlier offer, but without the healing potions they were her best hope. “Could I ask a favour of you?” 

“Depends,” Grizzop said.

“My husband was hurt a few days ago and the wounds haven’t healed as they should. Could you help?”

“Of course!” Azu answered, while Grizzop scrutinized her before shrugging.

“If he’s not infected.”

“No, it’s definitely something else,” she assured them.

“Then, sure.”

They made their way through the tunnel, back to her small cottage, which was set into the cliff her laboratory was located in. The cottage itself was located on a ledge, halfway built into cliff itself, well hidden beneath jutting stone from above, with only one possible direction of direct attack - from the sea - and enough options to flee, if need be. It was small, unlike the sprawling tunnels underneath, but it was mostly enough for her and her husband, whenever he joined her there. It even had a small garden.

“Dorian?” she called, as she opened the trap door leading up to the small storage room next to the kitchen. If he wanted them to know, that was his decision - for now she was fine with playing her part of the charade. “We have visitors staying over.”

He didn’t answer immediately and she felt unease settle in her stomach as she quickly dispelled the wards placed on the door to the kitchen. It was just as well that his voice floated through the house then. 

“Welcome home, darling.”

He was sat in the living room, glamour fully in place, curly blonde hair framing a boyish face with freckles. He looked far too well. The bowl sitting next to him on the small table gave away that he was not, as it contained reddish water, a soiled face cloth draped over the rim.

“It still hasn’t stopped bleeding?” she asked and he waved her off. 

“It’s not too bad. Visitors, huh?” His gaze shifted to the door behind her where Hamid and his friends started to pile in. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Yes,” she said deadpan and watched that little sparkle of mischief ignite in his eyes. If he wanted to have his fun for a moment, let him.

Hamid stepped forward and introduced the group to Liliana’s husband, who made a show of interest in getting to know them. It idled off into small talk between Hamid and him, until Grizzop clapped his hands together, already fidgeting from boredom.

“Right then, your wife says you could do with some healing.”

Her husband looked over to Liliana with a raised eyebrow, and she matched his expression. “Einstein was out of potions.”

“Much obliged,” he said to no one in particular, but Grizzop was already at his side. 

“So let’s see it then, where did you get hurt?”

He sat up, clearly in pain, and slowly undid the buttons of his shirt.

“Don’t worry, there is no shame in that, we’ve seen quite a bit of people by now,” Azu said, mistaking his hesitation for embarrassment. Out of the corner of her eye, Liliana saw Hamid nearly suppressing a wince at the awkward phrasing.

Grizzop squinted at him. Her own worry increased again, because it shouldn’t be a problem, her husband was skilled enough at this kind of partial illusion, unless - unless he hadn’t gotten a proper night's rest. 

“Are you wearing glamour?” Grizzop asked. “Why are you wearing glamour?” He halted. “Oh no, don’t tell me.” 

“What is going on?” Azu demanded calmly, while Sasha let out a laugh, not a particularly loud or pleased one, more like a burst of relief. 

“Is that Wilde? Mate, is that you?”

“Really?” Hamid said at her side. “Really?”

Her husband let his gaze wander quickly over them before it landed on her. “See, this is why I like them,” he said to Liliana and winked. Then he dropped the glamour. 

“It’s you, of course it’s you,” Grizzop said wearily.

“Wait,” Hamid said, realization sinking in. “Husband?” He shrieked and Liliana just shrugged. Needs must, as her mother would have said, and it had guaranteed her life. 

“Wait, what?” 

“That’s your _ husband_?” Hamid repeated faintly.

Grizzop looked between them, utterly fascinated. “I thought you liked, er, sausages.” 

Oscar looked over at him in momentary distraction, before he caught up with whatever reference that was between them. “Oh, I didn’t marry her for her … physical attributes.” 

“I clearly didn’t marry you for your brain,” Liliana replied coolly. 

“Hah!” Sasha exclaimed from the back. “That’s a good one.”

Liliana ignored them, and walked over to Oscar, eyes fixed on his now visible wound.

“You said it was better!” she groused, and he looked nearly apologetic. “This isn’t better.” She took the wet rag and none too gently dabbed at the already brownish blood trickling out of the wound.

“It was,” he gritted out through his teeth, flinching. She shot him a sharp look. “...and then it got worse again.”

From behind her Sasha peeked over her shoulder. “Been there, just uhh, maybe make sure you’re not undead or something.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said sarcastically and then turned to Liliana. “I was going to tell you.”

“Really, when?”

“Later. I was just taking care of other things first.”

“What, like bleeding out on the floor?”

Hamid coughed politely. “Err, perhaps you really should get that healed.”

Liliana gave a sharp nod and stepped back, raising an eyebrow at Grizzop. “Please, if you’d be so kind as to heal my _ husband_.”

Oscar let out a quiet laugh at the annoyance in her voice, which turned into a pained hiss as Grizzop slapped his hands on the wound.

“Let’s see if that works.” Soft light surrounded his hands, and when he removed them the wound looked mildly better. “Okay, that could be better, let’s try this one,” he said and put his hands back on the wound.

Hamid sidled up to her. “So is he really your husband?”

“Unfortunately.” 

“Really,” Hamid repeated himself. 

She sighed. “It’s legally binding, for what it’s worth.”

“And blessed,” Wilde interjected, before letting out another pained hiss as Grizzop slapped his arm.

“Hold still, pretty boy, we’re not done here.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that one before.”

Liliana turned back to Hamid and found Azu also hovering closer. She looked a lot more solemn than before.

“This,” Azu said, pointing at the amulet around Liliana’s neck, “is not something to be taken lightly.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t taken lightly.”

“A marriage under Aphrodite’s blessing should be one out of love.”

Her persistent headache returned, either from those words or the gentle scrutiny she found herself under.

“Well, then you should take it up with her, as she didn’t seem to mind,” her words came out a bit more testily than she meant to. She took a deep breath. “I - sorry. It’s just a rather complicated situation ... and a long day.”

The amulets were rare and not handed out lightly, but the Tahan family had been in possession of one set. Saira had smuggled them into the cell Liliana and Oscar had been held in at that time. In the past, these amulets had often been used in political marriages. The meritocrats had banned them from such use a long time ago, unless Aphrodite gave her blessing, activating most of the amulets’ more potent properties.

While Liliana’s marriage could be considered a chess move in the game she had caught herself up in, and her vow not one of romantic nature, it wasn’t something that had been taken without affection. That affection had been enough for Aphrodite to give her blessing and to make the amulets work - if barely. The charm wasn’t particularly strong, but it was there all the same. It had certainly saved her life a few times by now and, more importantly to her, it had kept Oscar alive countless times as well. 

Love comes in many forms, she remembered Aaron Fairhands say tiredly, as he wrapped up their small ceremony. 

“Complicated? You don’t say,” Hamid said, and she felt her temper rise again. 

“Indeed,” Wilde clipped in, his tone a bit sharper than usual. He smoothed it over easily right after. “It’s a brand new world after all. Things are bound to be a lot more complicated than they used to be.” The smile he threw Hamid’s way couldn’t quite mask the bitterness in it, and Liliana doubted she was the only one noticing it.

“Feeling better, then?” She asked him and walked back over to take a look herself. The wound was closed, and she picked the rag up again to wipe away the blood. There would barely be a scar there, Grizzop’s magic having done a tremendous job. It was easier to focus on this than the group of people currently in her small house, and the barrage of questions that came with them. 

“Never better,” Oscar replied, swatting her hand away gently, already buttoning his shirt back up. 

“Good, then clean up this mess. I don’t want that around by the time dinner is ready,” she pointed at the bowl with the bloodied water and threw the rag into it.

Hamid’s stomach growled as if on cue. Herr own joined in a second later.

“Well, I think I’ll get to it then,” she said briskly and turned around without waiting for any response. If she had a chance to avoid any more awkwardness for now, she would take it. Oscar could deal with them just fine, and she knew he would as she heard him redirect the conversation quickly already. “So how _ was _Rome and Japan?”

There was a unison groan of “Rome’s the worst.”

And then everyone started talking at once. As Liliana walked into the kitchen she caught a few more snippets. 

“Got stuck in the past a bit, but it didn’t stick.”

“You were supposed to be in Japan!”

“I _ was_, I just needed to lie low for a bit.”

“Here?”

“Where are we even?”

“Did you say you got stuck in the past?”

She closed the door behind her and briefly closed her eyes. There were too many people at once to deal with. She had never been as social as Hamid, but she’d been raised in a big family, with manners imposed on her on how to act in every social situation. Yet these days she found that any large group exhausted her quickly. Then again, during the lavish balls and big family gatherings in the past, she had never had to watch all hersides, never had to judge people at every turn, looking for clues if they might be infected after all. 

It certainly didn’t help that she was cooped up for weeks at a time in her laboratory, her only company being Gideon and the occasional communique from one of her colleagues in Khartoum, a letter from Saira, or a quick message at night from Oscar telling her that he was bored or assuring her that he was still alive. 

If the world ever returned to something resembling normal, she would need to get out more again, and actually talk to people outside of work or connections forged out of necessity. Perhaps visit a market to buy her produce and haggle for prices, like she had loved to do as a teenager accompanying their cook. Instead she had to rely on the canned rations and the vegetables she grew in the small garden behind the house. Thankfully she’d gotten better at gardening than she had been when her mother had tried to teach her how to take care of the rose bushes, in an attempt to make her more ladylike. It was lucky that she had become more adept at it, as otherwise it would have been difficult to scrounge up enough for six people staying for dinner and breakfast, while still covering the rest of the month until Einstein brought new rations. 

She settled on making a simple rice dish their cook had taught her when she was eleven and had asked him to show her how to make it. She could fall back on the batch of potatoes and some carrots from her garden after that. 

The door creaked quietly, and Liliana had a spell ready before she realized it was one of their guests. Sasha slipped deftly through the door, in a way that made Liliana suspect that if she could have remained unnoticed if she had wanted to. 

“Can I help you?”

“No, uhm - just checking ... do you need some help ... with the, the cooking?” Sasha glanced around the kitchen like she was rather looking for a way out than something to do. Liliana held back an exhausted sigh and pointed at the onions. “If you could peel and slice those, that would be helpful.” It seemed like she wasn’t the only one who had had enough of the loud discussion carrying on in the living room.

“Sure thing.”

They worked in relative quiet for a bit, Liliana handing Sasha some more vegetables and finally some apples.

"You're very quick," she found herself commenting, nearly wincing at how clumsy she had started to sound in her time spent in exile.

Sasha did take the comment with the same awkward hesitation. "Thanks, got lots of practice."

Liliana looked at her worriedly for a moment, before Sasha shifted in her seat and spoke up again. "I mean, there was my mate Gragg back in London, he's - uh, he has this pub – used to have," she amended, and a short lived look of worry passed over her face, the kind Liliana was all too familiar with. "I used to go there when - doesn't matter really, but helped out in the kitchen ... I mean I'm good with all kinds of knives ..." she muttered to herself before trailing off.

"Well then," Liliana said, and turned back to the rice she was preparing. "If you could put down some plates as well, I think dinner's almost ready." She pointed Sasha to the small cabinet above the sink where she stored plates and cups, and took out the cutlery herself. 

The table was meant for four grown humans at best, and it was going to be a tight fit with two humans and an orc, but it would have to do. Thankfully, when the others joined, Azu had taken off her heavy armour. Liliana squeezed in with Hamid on the small bench mounted to the wall, while Sasha folded herself in next to Grizzop on the opposite side, leaving enough room on both ends for Wilde and Azu. One of Oscar’s long legs brushed against Liliana’s feet, so she propped up her legs on his knee, the exhaustion finally kicking in from a long day of experiments and the fight.

He placed a bottle of wine on the table usually stored in the small side cabinet in the living room. "If you don't mind," he said.

"Not in the slightest." It wasn't like they were going to get many opportunities to share it with anyone else, and Liliana herself avoided drinking it when she was on her own, in case something did go wrong.

They were halfway through dinner when Sasha enthusiastically stabbed the air with her fork “Hah!” she said into the air.

“Sasha?” 

“Sorry, I just - so I was thinking? Proper ‘got to sit down and figure out the best way to get into a really posh building’ thinking? And if it needs four things to make it work, we already discovered three. Like the seed is one, and then what’s controlling it is something like Mr. Ceiling and -”

Liliana felt the muscle in her cheek twitch, she knew exactly where that thought was leading, had ever since she left her laboratory. “- we likely know what the power source is, “ she finished Sasha’s sentence.

Sasha beamed at her. “Yes! So that leaves us with - with -”

“One thing left,” Hamid said excitedly. “And what if that is something in the notes we already have!”

“Exactly,” Sasha said, looking very pleased.

“Which means we are closer to stopping it from spreading,” Wilde chimed in as well. “If we get the right clues as to what that is.” He took a sip from his wine. “But I guess that’s for you to find out.”

“While you hide away?” Hamid asked, voice even, but the jibe did land. She watched as Oscar’s carefully adapted mask slipped for a second, revealing more of the man he had become than he had so far let the group see. Harder and more bitter and ready to answer without any form of decorum in place.

“Don’t,” Liliana said sharply to Hamid, before Oscar could. “Just don’t. You’re a guest under my roof, act like it.”

Before this could escalate further Azu spoke up, voice calm but a bit louder than need be. “Is there a way you can help us in this?” She asked Wilde directly. His amiable mask slipped back into place effortlessly as he started to go into details. He threw in bad puns now and again, something that had become rarer as well, and to Liliana’s surprise Sasha picked up on them and threw in a few of her own.

In the chaos that caused, anything else was quickly forgotten.

It allowed her and Hamid to quietly talk too. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said after a bit of more inane chatter between them, his voice quieter than she was used to. “How is your family?” 

She knew his intention was to do small talk, smoothing over the ripples, but it didn’t keep her from freezing up. 

“Liliana?” his voice dropped in worry and she shook herself out of it. She had grown a bit more rusty in past few months when it came to social interactions, but not that much.

“They were in London, when …” she pursed her lips, angry at herself for not even being able to finish the sentence. “My parents and siblings were, at least,” she amended. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and she could tell he meant it. “The rest …”

“I don’t know,” she cut him off, not wishing to go over it at all. Oscar hadn’t managed to find them, and they hadn’t been in Athens when he had tried to check on them.

As if on cue, Oscar did cut in on the conversation then. “Hamid, what is your opinion on it?”

Hamid looked up, a bit bewildered, but once brought up to the rest of the conversation he let himself be engaged otherwise. Below the table Oscar’s hand found her ankle and squeezed it quickly, reassuringly, even as he flawlessly continued the conversation.

The rest of the dinner passed uneventfully until they got into an argument over who was doing the dishes. It ended with Hamid decisively casting prestidigitation, leaving Grizzop and Azu to look a bit put out, until Azu yawned. 

“We probably should rest soon,” Grizzop pointed out. “You got some spare beds?” He asked already sticking his head back through the kitchen door.

“I’m sure we can make room,” Oscar assured him.

They all looked quietly over Grizzop’s shoulder into the cramped space of the living room.

"I don't think we will all fit here," Azu finally stated the obvious.

“We’ll make room for you there,” Liliana reassured her and then turned to Grizzop and Hamid, sizing them up. "You two can share my bed if you like," she offered in a tone that didn't leave actual room for protest before turning to Sasha. "The attic is small and we don't use it, if you don’t mind, otherwise we can move the couch table outside."

"Sounds good to me," Sasha said already eyeing the ceiling.

"Where will you sleep?"

"With me," Oscar said suggestively, clearly intended to rile up Hamid, who huffed offendedly. The others groaned in annoyance.

"I'm getting the spare blankets," Liliana merely said.

When night fully came around and they had gotten their guests settled in properly, she found Oscar in the small study that connected their rooms. The door to her room, where Hamid and Grizzop were sleeping, was locked and she cast a silencing spell on it herself. 

The study was a refurbished storage room, and like everything else in the house cramped. Old shelves on the wall were stacked with several layers of books and notes upon notes, most of them written in code or in her shorthand, few pieces written out in its entirety. Between them were letters from friends and allies, Oscar’s novel drafts that he found less and less time to write, and a small number of research projects Liliana worked on to ward off the boredom and insanity that came with it. They had managed to cram a table into the room, a black line running down the middle to separate their working spaces; but their notes and papers had started to bleed over, one of her physics books lying open on his side of the table, a few half finished letters and sketches of his scattered over to her side.

Oscar was hunched over some of his papers, a letter neatly folded up next to him, another unfinished one at his side. 

“For Curie?” she guessed as she stepped up the small ladder to her chair; nearly nothing in this house being halfling sized. 

He hummed. “And Zolf.”

“None for Carter while you have the chance?” she asked dryly and he scoffed, taking it as the teasing it was. She didn’t much care for Carter, the little she had seen of him in another hideout months ago not endearing him to her. She supposed he was useful though. 

“Will you be writing Saira again,” he asked back, feigning disinterest.

“Perhaps that’s none of your business.” She saw a brief smile flicker over his lips. 

Liliana did end up writing a short note to Saira after all. She had little contact with the outside as it was, and fewer friends still, so if she could keep in contact with one of the people she did consider a friend these days, it helped make her feel less isolated and like she was a prisoner of war herself. 

Technically she could move wherever she wished to, realistically the world wasn’t going to allow her that freedom until they had managed to stop the infection. Curie wasn’t going to make her life easy should she decide to abandon her research, and she was under no illusion that the people who Tesla and Kafka had worked with weren’t out to get her, the scar across her shoulder testament to it.

The other scar on her back reminded her that they were out to get Oscar as well, dead or alive, whichever was more useful in the long run. She suspected that he had become too much of a nuisance sniffing out compromised people and putting a spanner into their machinations to warrant being captured alive these days. 

She forced herself to focus on writing down her findings from the day’s experiments and the fight with Gideon, intending to run some more controlled tests on it later. When her eyes started burning in the dim light and she felt Oscar shift and rub his neck, she found herself saying: “Perhaps some sleep might be good.”

“Yes,” he agreed, still staring at the papers in front of him, “perhaps.”

She put her own notes neatly away and added her letter to his little pile, and by the time she was done he had also sorted his own papers. While he went over to his room to get changed for the night, she checked the wards on the house and renewed a few spells around his room before joining him. 

He was about to put on his nightshirt and she could see the map of scars on his back and arms, the cuts that hadn’t healed neatly and the frost bite and burn marks. They were as familiar to her as her own scars, perhaps more so, as she did check them every time he returned, counting them in case something was off, looking more closely at the burned areas in case little veins had already started to form. 

“Like what you see?”

“In your dreams.”

“I doubt it.” 

It was their form of banter, easily viewed as antagonistic from the outside, long since a form of reassurance between them.

She changed out of her own dress into her nightgown and laid out one of her other dresses for the next day, the one she had worn today in no fit state to be worn again, not after the fight.

By the time she was done, he had already laid down on the bed, making enough room for her. It had been some time since they had slept in the same bed, but when she crawled under the spare blanket she had put down for herself, it didn’t feel unfamiliar. At least this bed was big enough to easily hold both of them. On their track through Europe, after escaping Warsaw, they had been forced to share beds often, lack of money and safety being the main reasons. On the days they had not found a room in an inn or hotel, they had huddled close for warmth, taking shifts, or slept back to back in case someone found them during the night. 

In the quiet that had finally settled over the house, she found herself all too aware of how many people were currently within, and inevitably found her thoughts drifting towards Hamid again. She had thought him dead for months now. Long before that he might as well have been to her, after he had disappeared on her without an explanation. 

She had missed him on occasion, still, had missed the easy companionship they used to have. Outside of whatever her marriage to Wilde was, Hamid still remained the longest relationship she had had, no matter how painfully it had ended.

Their relationship hadn’t been bad, but then Hamid had screwed up, screwed up to an extent that his family couldn’t completely cover up. Even if she had meant to stay at his side, he hadn’t given her that chance, and neither would her family have permitted it. Her father stern in his beliefs, and her mother overly worried about appearances and what example she was setting for her younger siblings.

Liliana missed them fiercely, especially today.

“Go to sleep, will you, I can hear you thinking,” Oscar muttered into the duvet. 

She sighed. “Perhaps it’s your own thoughts that are too loud.” Liliana could just about hear the jumble going through his head, with the recent information he had found and the current news his favourite mercenary group had dragged in. Not to speak of the mote of hope they had brought with them - let alone the chaos. 

“Always, but some rest really wouldn’t be amiss.”

“No, no it would not,” she agreed and turned towards him. In the soft candle light he looked a bit more alive then the day before, colour having returned to his face. Still, the dark shadows under his eyes were as persistent as they were under hers. He peeked at her out of one eye and then lifted his own blanket. She took the invitation readily and scooted over to him, pressing herself against his side as he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. 

“Good night, my dear.” She didn’t need to see his face to know the nearly insufferable smile had made its way back onto it - or the true fondness under his little quip.

“Sleep well, love,” she replied mockingly, but not without affection of her own.

She slept a bit more easily, if still haunted by memories.

\---

The first time they met was in a repurposed room in the Prague university, that no doubt served as an interrogation room and cell. 

He was the first person to be kind to her that day, even if it was all fake to gain her trust. But she was tired and scared, and he brought tea. He told her the truth about what was going on, as best as he knew, and confirmed Hamid’s story when she asked. 

He offered her a deal.

She would be working for the Meritocrats in a research facility in Warsaw and hand over everything on the work she had done with Kafka and Tesla, in exchange for immunity, her freedom and a chance to do good. 

She negotiated the rights on her own research, unrelated to her previous studies, and that should it ever be published it would be under her name. Another chance for herself at being known one day for what she had done. 

He agreed.

She took the deal.

When they left the room, he guided her out of the university, one hand on her shoulder. A sign under whose jurisdiction she was now, a prisoner changed hands, but also a sign of protection, something which she was marginally thankful for in all the chaos her life had become within a day. 

She met him again in a prison in Warsaw, set up under the temple of Mars.

London and Paris had already fallen by then, and the Cult of Mars had been less favourable and even more militant. When they found out that someone was working at the meritocratic research facility, who was likely involved in creating whatever was spreading, they dragged her out of her home at night. Her only saving grace was that they were still sticklers for rules and paperwork and proper procedure.

Wilde’s own integrity had been destroyed in the eyes of the Cult of Mars, and when they had found him in Warsaw, they had locked him up too, not giving him a chance to call on his connections within the city. Not that he had many left, and even fewer of those reliable.

“I’m afraid I’m of little use this time, Ms Bekos,” he said, rattling his chains. The same kind of chains she wore, the kind that suppressed her magic. Her magic was the one thing the Cult of Mars had thought to be dangerous about her, overlooking what else she had on her at the time.

“Do you know the way out of here?” she asked him, because she didn’t, and that would actually be useful to her. They had brought her in blindfolded, and if she was to get out, she only had one shot and limited time, and couldn’t afford to get lost in the circuitous prison tunnels.

He did know.

The chance came when the alarm sounded in the middle of the night. Liliana took out the things she had managed to hide from her jailors under a loose stone below her bed. Then she took off the ring she wore, the one she had told everyone was from her dead grandmother. The ring had once been, but the gemstone in it was replaced with one of her miniature power sources.

She cracked the ring under the leg of the small cot in the cell, carefully set the stone into her makeshift laser and then set out to dismantle her chains. Once taken care of, she used it to break open the door. It made more noise than she had wanted, but from above there was the sound of fighting mingling with the alarm. It was coming closer, so when she reached Wilde’s cell, she didn’t even bother trying to be stealthy. She blew out the lock with nearly all the power left. 

He looked at her wide eyed and impressed, a joke on his lips she couldn’t recall later. She cut his chains just in time before she heard someone clanking down the stairs. He pressed her against the nearest wall, shielded her with his body and gestured for her to be silent. She more felt than heard him humming and then the illusion settled around them. 

The guard looked into the cell, cursed loudly and was gone just seconds later, already shouting about the prisoners escaping. 

They made their way through the maze below the temple and then through the chaos that had erupted inside it. He held her arm to keep her close, and she could feel him straining to keep up the illusion that kept both of them hidden. 

When they finally made it out, all of Warsaw was a battlefield. 

She couldn’t remember how they made it out of the city, just that in the end they’d both been out of spells and covered in dirt. He didn’t have anyone else he could trust, and she had no one else entirely, so they stuck together for a bit longer.

He wanted to go back to Cairo, and since she couldn’t think of any place to go that wasn’t infected already or her home town in Greece, where she felt she could not return, she went with him.

Except with everything going to hell, there was no way to get there easily. All functioning teleportation circles were either destroyed, corrupted or under Mars protection. Public transport wasn’t safe either, not for long. They would take a train when they could make it, but always leave before the destination printed on their ticket, then trek through the country as far as they could for the day, finding shelter wherever they could. Sometimes in small inn rooms, sometimes in a barn, sometimes outside under a tree.

He was good at flirting and bargaining and distracting and _ talking _. It got them as far as it did, even if half the time people would’ve preferred to strangle him - Liliana being no exception.

On occasion, if sleep did find her, Liliana dreamt of spreading veins.

She was good at repairing and mending things, and that got them further when talking didn’t help. 

They met two elderly ladies, and she repaired their car - they used to have two, but had had to leave the other one behind in France. That got them a ride to the Slovakian border. He flirted shamelessly with them, which got them the money for a train to Budapest and some good food.

That was the first time they got mistaken for a couple on the run, too.

In Budapest it turned out just how good she was at card games - at counting and calculating chances and bluffing. Hanging out with Hamid and Gideon and their less savory friends, the ones that had always been up to something, turned out to be good for something after all. It helped that she was also small and frail looking with big eyes. It made people underestimate her. Made them think she was sweet and nice - she wasn’t. If she ever was, the past few months had taught her better. It was in Budapest they became aware of how closely they were followed, and they barely managed to slip away from a confrontation.

After Budapest they had avoided cities and towns more often. With fewer crowds, it was easier this way to notice people who had been infected or were following them. It made it easier for others to spot them in small towns too, so they never stayed in one place for long. 

If she were to pinpoint the moment they became friends, and not just two people dragging each other across the continent, she wouldn’t say it was in that field in Hungary. But it was where she realized he had started to grow on her. 

The weather had been going haywire for months, and that night the temperatures dropped to freezing. They were both out of spells, barely escaping trouble from the last town. Too cold to sleep, they sat there shaking in the dark, pressed into a hollowed out tree and against each other. In the end he took off his flimsy, fashionable scarf and wrapped it around her and then curled himself around her, shielding her from the cold. 

“You’re more likely to keep us alive, if they find us again,” he said, oddly solemn.

The next day he almost died on her from exposure and she managed to hide them on a small farm owned by an old couple. She lied her way elegantly through it, spun a nice story of a newlywed couple escaping Warsaw and on their way to her family in Greece, how he got hurt in an accident and then caught in the cold of the night.

When he woke up again, a quip on his lips, she found herself even laughing at it. 

Perhaps that was the point when they’d started to be friends, even if none of them admitted to it.

There was a time when Liliana pondered if she should just return home after all, go back to her family, or at least warn them about what was spreading through Europe, but they didn’t have time, she knew that too. Oscar promised her he would go looking for them later, once they had a clearer idea of how fast and how widespread the infection really was. She knew he was saying it to placate her more than anything. He was low on resources too, and unless the meritocratic forces in Cairo weren’t corrupted at all and enough of them were left to do anything, then her family came low on the list of things to take care of. It did help though, if only a little.

They had made it past Istanbul when one of their pursuers found them in a small hostel, run by a nice young lady. By luck alone, he hadn’t noticed she was in the room too, when he approached Oscar, who cordially engaged him. The man was affable and reasonable and Liliana wanted to burn his face off the second he opened his mouth. He introduced himself as Arthur Wellesley, and if Liliana remembered anything from her social interactions in England, she knew that he was next in line for the Wellington title.

Oscar managed to coax out some more information before she flung a fireball at Wellesley’s back, but their getaway wasn’t clean, and Wellesley hadn’t come unprepared. Oscar got away, but Liliana did not. She woke up in an abandoned warehouse, chained up, to Wellesley sounding all apologetic, reassuring her that they hadn’t meant to hurt her, in fact offering her to return to working with Tesla and several of his associates.

“You’re a remarkable woman after all, with quite a mind.” 

She didn’t spit in his face, barely, but instead she said: “I’d rather be dead.” It worked just as well. 

“Very well, Ms. Bekos, maybe you’ll change your mind soon,” he said, a cold smile on his face, and she felt afraid more than anything then. He left her alone, with only two guards to ward her. Oscar came to her rescue hours later, somehow having found a mercenary willing to work with him in exchange for the rest of their money and a few secrets. 

After they had made it out of the city, she asked him why. 

“You’re a valuable asset,” he said flippantly, even as he wrapped his scarf around her shoulders again. 

“The same can’t be said for you,” she shot back, and the laughter that burst out of him made her smile as well.

In Aleppo he took a scorching ray spell for her.

Near Cairo she took a sword to the back to protect him.

Wellesley found them again later, this time with non-magical backup. He tried to talk both of them over. When he didn’t even get any positive response out of them it became rapidly clear she was valuable dead or alive, as long as they could get her brain. Oscar was valuable for his other talents as well as intel, and if Wellesley and his friends couldn’t have it, he was better off dead.

Their only luck was a nearby cell of Harlequins getting into the fray. Not that they’d been hugely useful, but they had served as a good distraction, right up to the point where she could see Oscar being a hair’s breadth away from death. She didn’t think, just saw the sword coming down and put herself in the way. 

She nearly died that day, and woke up days later in a small room in the temple of Aphrodite.

Oscar was slumped in a chair next to her, while outside the Cult of Mars had positioned guards. Not to protect them, but to put them under arrest, again.

The third time she found herself in a cell with him, they got married. 

Back then Apophis had started working with the Harlequins, independently of the other Meritocrats, to stop whatever was happening throughout the world. It was a very hushed operation, only Curie and Freud really in the know, negotiating over how they wanted to approach the issue and who would provide which support and intel.

Liliana and Oscar found themselves in the middle of those negotiations. Curie wanted Oscar as insurance for their continued collaboration, and Apophis reminded her that he was likely better suited as an agent - if he wasn’t infected already.

Both wanted Liliana to hand over her information on Tesla’s project, and she realized Wilde had never handed in the research she’d given to him back in Prague. She caught his eye and he subtly shook his head. So when asked she simply said she couldn’t remember everything, but given time and the right equipment she would be able to reproduce the results. 

“You’re currently the only one we can hold accountable for what is happening,” Curie reminded her.

“Any evidence that the simulacrum and the infection are connected is purely circumstantial,” Oscar elegantly pointed out, but Liliana knew very well that while causation and correlation were two entirely different concepts, the timing of it all was far too convenient. Apophis and Curie apparently agreed with her silent assessment, and went back into another round of discussion. 

It scared her. 

But then she had been tired and scared for the past few months, and it dawned on her how little she cared for being treated like an object, free to be handed over to whoever had the best claim. 

“Shut up,” she told both Curie and Apophis. If she was going to die she might as well get herself killed properly, instead of bleeding out in the desert. 

“Just shut up.” She repeated more forcefully when they looked at her. Curie looked mildly thrown and Apophis had a curious look on his face.

And then she laid out her own terms. She would help, but she would not be bartered off to either of them. If they gave her the equipment needed, she would work on replicating the results and whatever other research was needed, but the one person she would entrust with whatever she found was going to be Wilde. Unless they gave her enough reason to trust any of them too.

Otherwise they were free to kill her off right away.

There was a brief pause where she thought that this was the option they might be going for. But in the end she was brought back to her cell, only to be joined not much later by Oscar.

“They are more worried about the potential security risk it would pose, should one of us - should I - get infected,” he admitted to her.

A key turned in cell door and they both went silent.

It was Saira who entered the cell, a small tray in her hands. Even as Liliana was glad to see her, a little bit of anxiety settled back in her stomach. The last time they had seen each other was back when Liliana had still been with Hamid. But Saira smiled at her warmly, relief in her own eyes. “Lili, it’s so good to see you again.”

“I just hoped the circumstances would’ve been better,” she admitted.

Saira waited until the door closed behind her, before she answered. “Well, I was asked to work out a solution for that,” she said quietly, and placed the tray with two cups of water on a small chair in the corner.

“Any ideas already on how to get us out of here?” Oscar asked.

“Not yet. Quite frankly, I’m a bit out of my depth here too.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Liliana said.

“Let’s start small then. Even if we don’t get out, I’d rather we find a way to stay together,” Oscar said. “I don’t trust Curie, and at this point I am not sure I trust anyone in the meritocratic forces.” He threw Saira a smile. “No offence.”

“No offence taken,” she replied, her hand coming up to briefly touch the lock of hair that had fallen out of her braid. A tell if Liliana ever saw one.

“Saira?”

“I just … I had a thought for a second, but - no, nevermind.”

“It might work as a starting point if nothing else,” Wilde said, eyes gone carefully devoid of emotions. 

“You won’t like it, either of you.”

“Just spit it out, will you,” Liliana said, a bit more forcefully than intended. Saira tilted her head at her and for a second looked as offended as Hamid would have, but Saira reigned it in faster.

“Well, if you have a legal claim - or maybe even a divine claim - that could strengthen -” she trailed off, leaving both of them to pick up that thought.

“- You’re suggesting we get married.”

Saira looked at them apologetically. “Specifically, married with a blessing by one of the gods. Preferably Aphrodite.”

“How -” Oscar started, and Liliana finished the thought, “- I’m not sure I want to know.”

“It was Aziza’s plan, years ago, in case father didn’t approve of her marriage.”

“I’m very certain that these things require some form of … actually being in love,” Liliana pointed out.

“That, or at least lust mistaken for love,” Oscar said and she just looked over at Oscar, expression blank. “Point taken,” he shrugged.

“Well, if you have any other suggestions? Otherwise I can at least look into it.”

They didn’t, and while Saira discreetly consulted with the cult of Aphrodite, they didn’t come up with anything more workable either, or even something that didn’t have a high chance of getting them killed in the short run.

Saira eventually came back with the two amulets and Aaron Fairhands in tow. He didn’t look exactly thrilled at the prospect, but was good at hiding it and very patient at laying out their options, and at explaining what the amulets could do. He warned them too, that it entirely depended on whether Aphrodite approved of this marriage or not. It not being out of romantic love, the chances were slim, but not impossible. As long as there was a shred of fondness between them, it could work.

Oscar took her aside and they discussed it in hushed voices. It wasn’t a very long discussion. Or a very difficult one at that.

It wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted or had ever considered happening, but if the past weeks had taught them anything, it was that they had a higher chance at staying alive if they were together. They worked well together, too, and could trust the other, something which neither of them was good at with a lot of other people. The world was upside down these days, so grasping at straws to stay with someone you could actually trust wasn’t unreasonable.

“You could do worse,” Oscar pointed out when they both agreed to go through with the ceremony.

“I doubt that.”

“It could’ve been, what’s his name …”

“Point taken.” The corner of her lips twitched up in a smile. “Well, at least you couldn’t have done better,” she said with a confidence she didn’t really feel.

“Arguably.” He reached for her hand then. “Shall we?”

She let out a shaky breath, squared her shoulders, and gave him a brisk nod. 

Fairhands had quietly observed them, and when they approached he gave them a reassuring smile, face void of whatever he might actually be thinking.

The ceremony itself was quick, a short exchange of promises to protect and care for each other, and Liliana was relieved that Fairhands had adapted the vow. When he put his own hands over theirs, the amulets they had placed around each other’s necks glowed with the very faintest of pink. 

It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

“Normally I’d say congratulations, but perhaps best of luck might be more appropriate,” Fairhands finished off.

Oscar and her looked uneasily at each other. “So no kiss required to make this binding?” he asked the question that had rattled through her mind as well.

“Not unless you want too.”

“As lovely as you are,” he directed at Liliana, “I’d rather not.”

“I’d rather kiss a donkey,” she replied, and saw a sharp smile flitter over his face. 

“I’m sure there are ways to arrange that.”

Saira interrupted their bickering. “Are you done? I was told to get you back to the others right away.”

Liliana looked over to Oscar, and his face went briefly taut again, before his mask slipped back into place.

“Ready?” 

“As much as I’ll ever be.”

\---

When she woke up early, Oscar was already up. She found him in the small study, again sorting papers and scribbling notes, a cup of coffee at his side. Her enchanted mug stood steaming on her side of the desk, the liquid inside still warm. One of her smaller inventions made out of boredom, and definitely one of her more useful ones.

He waited until she had taken her first sip of tea, before acknowledging her. “Slept well?”

“Hardly,” she replied. “I gather you didn’t either?”

“Not very much so, no.”

She hummed. “I’ll be going down shortly and fix the teleportation circle. If there is anything you want to discuss with them, you should probably do it soon.”

He nodded in her direction, but his attention was already drawn back to whatever he was writing. She turned to her spell book, preparing the spells she was most likely to need, marking down those that she could cast as rituals as well, so she wouldn’t use up all of her own spells for repairing the transportation circle. She didn’t know if there were any after effects of yesterday’s incident, and she’d rather not face Gideon running low on spells.

She cross-referenced the teleportation spells she had scribbled down, considering if she should prepare one or just call Einstein in, when Oscar spoke up again.

“If you could have a transportation spell ready, that might come in handy.”

Liliana didn’t ask what for, but still prepared them. He didn’t seem much in the mood for talking right now, and neither was she. If it was important he’d tell her later.

When she had gathered everything she needed, she made her way to the kitchen, notes stuffed into the pockets of her apron and mug in her hand. She wanted to hurry down, get things fixed and start with the next project, when she caught a glimpse of the sunrise outside. It hit her then. Somehow, whatever equilibrium she had been stuck in here had been broken when Hamid and his friends arrived, and the unwritten schedule she had been working on seemed to have accelerated. A feeling settled over her that, one way or another, she wasn’t going to stay her for much longer. 

No matter what her thoughts on this place were as such, one thing she had always enjoyed about it was the view over the ocean, especially in the early morning hours. 

It didn’t seem like the others were awake yet, and while on a tight schedule, she could afford a few minutes to enjoy the sunrise in her own garden. The sun slowly crept over the horizon, painting the sky red and yellow for a few minutes, until it rose too high and the sky cleared up into a bright blue. Below the water glittered, only broken by bits of foam from the waves breaking against the cliff.

Not for the first time, it made her feel like she was at the end of the world, stuck alone out here, trapped in another pocket dimension.

Behind her, someone opened the door carefully, bringing her out of her contemplation.

“Good morning,” Azu greeted her quietly. She hadn’t put on her glowing pink armor yet, but in the early morning light there still seemed to be a pink aura around her. “You’re up early.”

“So are you,” Liliana pointed out, and reminded herself that manners were indeed still a thing. “I hope you slept well, apologies for the lack of accommodations.”

“No, no, it was fine!” Azu was quick to reassure her. “Your rug is very comfortable, very little blood on it too.”

“Yes, well,” Liliana said and they found themselves in an awkward silence.

“This is a nice view,” Azu pointed out after a moment.

Liliana nodded in agreement. “It’s rather lovely.” It still was, but whatever little bit of serenity the moment had held before Azu had joined her was dispelled. “I should go and fix the transportation circle, but you can enjoy it a bit longer.”

“Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it’s just - it’ll take a bit of time and we wouldn’t want to keep you longer than needed,” Liliana reassured her.

“Yes,” Azu said solemnly. “Things are moving rather fast.”

“Indeed,” Liliana said, despite not having had a solid sense of time for several months now. “If you want breakfast, there is bread and some jam in the cupboard on the left. There might be some coffee and tea already around.” Liliana hadn’t checked if Oscar had prepared more than just the two cups for them. “If not, my hu -” she caught herself, an old habit to avoid mentioning him by name to others, in case things went wrong. “Oscar can help you out, he’s already up. Good luck prying him away from his work, though,” she added.

Azu considered her curiously. “You really do care for him,” she pointed out.

“Well, my life does depend on him staying alive, so obviously.”

Azu looked a bit taken aback by her harsh words. “Apologies.”

“It’s alright.” She smoothed over a crease on her apron. “It’s - I do care. It’s just not an ideal situation,” Liliana found herself admitting. “For either of us.”

Her honesty earned her a look of sympathy, which she resolutely ignored.

“Well, when this is over you can go your separate ways and find someone more suitable.”

“Excuse me?” Now Liliana found herself taken aback by the direction this was heading. Perhaps they had ended up having two different conversations after all, because this wasn’t quite what she had meant.

“She means you could get a divorce,” a voice mumbled from the roof, nearly giving Liliana a heart attack. It was only Azu being completely unperturbed that kept her from sending a fireball right upwards, incinerating her own house.

“Yes, what Sasha said,” Azu said calmly, as said Sasha dropped down on the porch next to them.

Liliana send her a cold look. “I’d appreciate it if you weren’t eavesdropping from my roof. It would have been perfectly fine if you’d come down to join the conversation earlier.”

Sasha shot her a look back, and then hunched her shoulders, tucking her chin in. “‘s not like I meant to eavesdrop, people shouldn’t just start having conversations under roofs when someone tries to watch the sunrise,” she mumbled.

“Well, I’m going to go fix the transportation circle now,” Liliana said briskly and left the two to their own devices.

It unsettled her a bit that the thought of a divorce hadn’t even crossed her mind. Survival was still at the forefront of her mind, and a solution to the infection still seemed so far out of reach. It didn’t help that she had gotten accustomed to the whole situation, a little bit of stability in a radically changed world and a bit of change in the stasis she was stuck in. A thought best to be dealt with later; so she filed it away in a corner of her mind and set out to deal with more immediate concerns.

She checked in on Gideon first. He still seemed subdued and had gone back to only watching her through the glass, unblinking and face empty, not even reacting as she pushed water and a bit of survival rations through to him.

Then she went to clean up the rest of the mess from the day before, and settled herself into fixing the circle. She carefully placed the ingredients she needed on the floor, and let her magic flow out to melt them into the required places, transmuting some bits into metal and infusing other bits with magic.

It took her three hours in the end, and she nearly tapped out on spells entirely, aside from the ones she had put aside on Oscar’s request and two for her own protection. When it was all done she called Einstein on the mobile stone.

It wasn’t easy explaining things fast to him, but when she managed to get him to listen properly and convinced him that it was indeed her he was talking to, he agreed to pick up the others.

Then she sent a short message to Oscar that everything was ready. Shortly after, Hamid and his friends piled up in her laboratory, only seconds before Einstein poofed in, bringing everything into even more disarray. While the rest of Hamid’s group were busy talking to Einstein, Hamid turned to her.

“See you around?” He sounded hesitant and Liliana couldn’t fault him, unsure herself if they indeed would, or if that would be a welcome reunion.

“See you around,” she replied, with more confidence then she felt.

He gave her a wan smile, which she hesitantly returned. 

“Oh, before I forget -” she said patting her pockets for the letter she had meant to give him for Saira, should he see her, remembering too late that she had left it upstairs.

“The letter?” he asked and on her affirmation, reassured her that Oscar had given it to him already. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it to her.”

“Thank you,” she said, and found she meant it.

“Can we go now?” Einstein yelled over, growing impatient. “I have other people who need my services know, you know. Even if it’s always good to see all of you.” He threw them all a bright smile, even Liliana.

“Yes, of course, professor,” Hamid quickly said, but Liliana grabbed his arm one more time. 

“Don’t tell anyone about … about my husband?” she reminded him.

“I promise,” he said, and she let go of him so he could move over to the rest of his group already stood in the circle. 

They gave her a last goodbye and then all of them disappeared, leaving her in a well known silence that seemed all the louder now.

She found it harder, afterwards, to focus on the tests she had meant to run, and returned far earlier to her house than anticipated.

She found Oscar in his room, already packing several things, far more than he usually took on his trips.

“You’ll be leaving soon as well?”

He nodded and looked over to her. “And I think you should accompany me.” She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “I do trust them, but,” he paused to gather his thoughts, “they have a tendency to create a certain amount of chaos wherever they go.”

“I think I have an idea.” She smoothed out the apron again, the crease still visible that had bothered her in the morning. “Where to then?”

“I haven’t quite figured that one out - yet.” He reached out and took her hand in his and she squeezed it reassuringly in return. “But we’ll find somewhere.”

“As long as it isn’t Paris.”

“Rather not.”

“I heard they have a bit of an infestation there.”

“Oh, I’m not much worried about that. But the last time I was there, the hotel I was in had some truly horrendous curtains. A right fashion disaster.”

Liliana found herself laughing. “In that case, perhaps somewhere else.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note on Liliana's last name: it came up in one discord convo with Bryn that it's likely spelt Bekos and that she is from Greece, so for fic purposes, I'm running with that.
> 
> So many thanks to my beta reader Bittercape, who did an excellent job at overall nitpicking, and midnightmew for going over the britpicking.
> 
> And so so many thanks to Camille/Hedgefruit, who did some amazing art for it! Which you can find [ here](https://magictavern.tumblr.com/post/186935830283/lilianas-field-of-expertise-had-never-been).


End file.
